Prescott School District September Board Meeting

001All right, welcome everybody. This is the Prescott School District Board of Education regular meeting. I'll call the meeting to order. Subject 1983 Wisconsin statutes. Our first item here is pledge of allegiance. >> Tony, can you please? >> Absolutely. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next item here is recognition of visitors. Rules for public comment are as follows. Please approach the podium one at a time stating your name, municipality, and topic you'd like to address. Allowed time is three minutes per individual or six if you're if you're representing a group that is present at the meeting. All comments should be directed to the board and not to staff or

002other participants. The board will not act on any comments that are made during the meeting. The presiding officer may direct the district administrator to follow up with that individual at a later date. And the public comment section will be limited to 30 minutes unless board action is taken to extend. And as always, please refer to our public comment policy listed on the agenda for a full description of this section of the meeting. Anybody care at this time to be recognized? >> My point of order real quick, I think we have to adopt the agenda. Yes. >> Um, yeah, I I can call that out right now. So, there's a little change. We can we can we're mixing it up. Okay. >> So, we can we can do the adopt the agenda and the >> the

003consent as one motion. >> Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. So that's it's new procedure for us. Try to make the meeting a little a little smoother. Anybody care to be recognized at this time? >> Yep. Come on up. Just change. >> My name is Can you hear me? Hear me anyway. My name is Joel Rice. I live at the end of Jewel Street. I'm just very interested what's going on with the property there. Uh I had heard that uh somebody a contractor had made like a bid on what they'd like to do or you know with that property, but I live right across the street and I would like if it is going to go up it should that lease go for sale for anybody. I might want to buy it myself for my privacy reasons

004and and if he has the best price he can have it or whoever. actions. Sorry, but uh I and I want to see the city do well also and I love the hiking trail idea, but I also look at the preliminary little drawing of the hiking trail that does go up around and if you have any idea how much the it drops off back there, it's mountain climbing is what it is on that side. And I had also proposed to buy a portion of that property below there for myself. Then they could use that money to actually use it to get especially on the other side of the road. They could develop that trail and they could actually get down in there. It drops a long ways. I don't even go to I used to

005go down there years ago and take hikes. I don't anymore. >> My grandson does. So just for that reason, I like we just kept a a breast of what's going on. And if it does go for sale, it should be listed. So anybody's available, even one of the other neighbors that maybe they would like to buy it. They only live up a little ways and develop it themselves. So that's all I'd like to see is it left wide open so that anybody has a chance to purchase. >> Thanks, Joe. And I'll have I I'll have Tim reach out to you. So if you leave your contact information. >> Okay. >> It's written over there. >> Yeah. Make sure Courtney has it. I'll reach out to you. >> All right. And thank you. Anybody else care

006to be recognized at this time? Okay, we're going to move on. Thank you. First item here is good news. Our next item is good news. Who wants to go first here? >> Kayen Hillbr. >> Our new school board rep, Kayen Hillbrand. >> Hello all, my name is Kayen Hillbrand and I'm honored to have been elected this year's school board representative by Prescott High School student council. I'm a senior this year. I served as vice president last year and I've been a member on the council all four years. Outside student government, I'm involved in National Honor Society, the community service club, and Mercy softball. Today, I'm going to briefly discuss two topics. The 202526 student council mission statement and goals, and homecoming. Okay, for starters, we have the 202526 student council mission statement and goals, which

007is presented up on the board. These goals were discussed during our August 27th meeting and are set to be approved during our first regular meeting on this Friday, September 12th. The first segment of this document states the officers of this year's student council. So the president is Norables, the vice president is Carly Wall, I am the student board representative and the secretary is Kira Dicks. Continuing on, Continuing on to our mission statement. The mission The mission of Prescott High School Council is to be an actionoriented governing body that links the students with administration, responsibly represents the voices of the students, and creates a unified school community by promoting acceptance and equality. The student council's goals for the 202526 school year are to hold and attend monthly student council meetings on the second Friday of each

008month and for senior council member officers to meet with administration the last week of every month to discuss identified issues and concerns. To be accountable for promoting and modeling responsible and respectful behaviors in and out of school. to encourage school unity while also respecting individuality and diversity. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other unacceptable behaviors are not that are not in line with the educational values of the Prescott School District. To be a voice for the student body, and to provide opportunities for classmates, to address concerns or issues in the student council, to encourage enthusiastic student involvement in school activities. So, that is the mission statement goals of this year's student council. And as I mentioned before, these goals are set to be approved Friday. Moving on, I'd like to share some plans for this year's homecoming

009celebration. Homecoming is set to take place from September 29th to October 3rd. Some things that are going on within the high school are key events such as rowdy ruff on Monday, powderpuff hopefully on Tuesday night, dress up days throughout the week, trivia and games during lunch, pep rallies on both Monday and Friday within the high school, hall decorating, and much more. Some dates and times still need to be paired with events, but the excitement is definitely growing as we continue our way through September. Thank you. >> It's really tough to follow K. Um, okay. So, good news, uh, from around the district. um from the intermediate school. Uh Mr. Cosmos sent in that this week the intermediate school launched their one school one book program with the book the journal of Otto Helton a Finnish

010immigrant set in 1905. The story follows 15-year-old Otto on his remarkable journey from Finland to Hibbing Minnesota. After beginning school, Otto was forced to leave his studies to work alongside his father in the underground mines helping to support his family. The book is rich with lessons on perseverance, sacrifice, and resilience. messages that resonate deeply with the intermediate school students. So over the next several weeks, students will engage in a variety of meaningful activities connected to the story like they have the past few years. Uh the program will conclude with an all school field trip to Pioneer Village in Richmond. Giving students the chance to step back in time and experience history firsthand. Um a huge huge shout out again to Aftton Apple. They're always generous with us, but their generous grant allows uh the intermediate

011school to continue to do the one school, one book tradition. Um that's powerful. My kids have both gone through it. They both loved it. Um so very well done to both Ashton Apple and the intermediate school staff. Um from the middle school, uh they report they had an amazing uh return to school. The return to learn days um were extremely successful. They kicked off I think it was their second annual field day this year. Um and again I have a sixth grader this year. He reported that was one of his favorite days. Um so a big shout out because I know there's a lot of work that goes into that for the middle school staff. Um, we also hosted our return tole learn up here. We had a really successful freshman orientation, Cardinal Olympics. Uh,

012the high school students partnered again and the staff partnered again with the intermediate school students uh around team building and community. And you can see some of the the pictures that are floating up on the screen. Um, and I want to give a huge shout out and I'm glad that Kaden's here because she's one of them to just our student volunteerism and leadership. Um, the past few years we've definitely grown. um our students have really taken a key sense of leadership and responsibility in what we're able to deliver for our student population for our younger students. That's become kind of a central tenant. Um and so that even just this past month, starting with National Night Out, we had over 25 student volunteers who came in to make everything run that night from community engagement,

013games, uh color run, um serving food, preparing food. Um they did a student leadership summit. They helped launch and did about 3 hours of activities for our freshman orientation day. Um they were integral to our Cardinal Olympics and leading younger students through activities. Um they've they've developed a service learning group or a student volunteerism group. So just a ton of things that make this school year start um very smoothly because our students are leading from the front. Um and then the one last thing that Mr. Rago said to me when I asked him about this year is he just said this overall felt like the best start to a school year. Very positive for staff, very positive for students. Um and I've heard just about all of our staff members echo that. So um I

014feel like we're rolling at the beginning of September here. Um we're hoping that all of our community gets involved in some of the amazing activities that we're planning out for homecoming cuz it is more than a high school event. So um we'll release some of those bigger plans for our week uh coming up. Thank you. >> Thank you. For me as superintendent, I think the best thing has just been seeing us establish the routine in the first week and a half. Um, I've been at a lot of the schools at the start of the day, end of the day, um, drop off, pickup, uh, kids getting where they belong, coming into school with a smile on their face, some of them even say hi to the new guy who they don't know. Um, it's just

015really been a pleasure to see how smoothly and how well all of our schools run. Also, I found out today, so I didn't get this to the board until just now, that um the Prescott High School received the Broccolings Broccoli Seedling School Award through the Wisconsin farm-toschool recognition program. Basically, this award recognizes our commitment to supporting farm-to-school efforts like sourcing local food, offering agricultural education, and growing school gardens. Um, farm to school, we were one of only a handful of schools in the state of Wisconsin. Uh, we just, again, we just got that award two hours ago, so I want to pass that on to the board. And then, uh, [Music] our first Cardinal champion of the year is Shaina Clawson. Shaina uh is an exemplary staff member in human. Over the past three years,

016Shaina has taken on a leadership role within the special education department at the high school. She has worked diligently to ensure our students have the support they need. Shaina takes the lead on creating instructional assistance schedules each fall and works collaborative with both special education colleagues and general education teachers to ensure proper support is in place. She is fiercely determined and driven to always put her students first. Additionally, she Shaina has also taken the lead with the inclusivity group at the high school, being able to authentically connect with people of all different backgrounds and personalities. She's coordinated prom for the past two years and most recently has helped move the needle on enhancing staff and student culture throughout the building. She's a team player who goes the extra mile. On top of all this, her

017work is thorough, detailed, and serves as an example for others. So, Mr. Figgy, Mr. Montreal. Miss uh Strand and I were able to present her with her award this this afternoon. >> That's great. >> All right. Thank you. Move on to business. And this is where we got the change and I apologize for not bringing this to the board first. Uh but the the change in the procedure to not adopt the agenda up front that we checked that with state statute. Jim recommended it. Other school districts do it. So it's a little bit more streamlined that way. uh to to roll it into one here. So, uh this is the first time we're trying it. So, in the consent, we have the August 20th, 2025 regular board minutes, finance reports, personnel report for non-licensed staff

018service agreement with River Falls School District for project search and accept Niola schoolboard polical updates and changes for the following policies board policies version 34.2. two per district administrator's responsibility. So what we would do here is make a motion to adopt the agenda and to approve the consent agenda as one item. First of all, is there anything in the consent that would like that the board would like to have pulled out? Anything there? >> No. Okay. So now we can we can make a motion. Uh, I move to adopt the agenda and approve the consent agenda as presented. >> I'll second. >> Okay, we have a motion, a second. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. That one carries. We're going to move. I guess it would be consider We're There's no personnel reports. >>

019No. >> To to report on. So, that got struck. Consider moving the octo the October regular board meeting to October 16th. I think just got to double check here. I made that >> and that's a Thursday for those who are listening. Uh we get our state aid numbers somewhere around 9:00 on the 15th and um to finalize our numbers from 9:00 in the morning to a 6:00 board meeting is doable but challenging. >> Can I ask does um do we have to do anything with approval of those numbers at that point? Does it have to do with budget and stuff like that? And it has to be done in October by certain date. >> We have to set the budget by October 30th by law. >> Okay. >> So, yeah, we have to finalize the

020the numbers that we have. >> So, the 16th works for me, but is it better if we look at the following week just to give you guys a little bit of time? Not now. >> I don't think we'll have a full board there. >> Oh, okay. >> So, >> yeah. Yeah, that's fine. We we certainly can, but I think we >> try to push it if if it works for you the 16th. I mean, if that if that's enough time to turn around and and get everything and I will block our schedules and if we need to get help from Barrett or something like that, we'll make sure we have it booked on the 15th. >> Okay. I'm >> sorry. I tried. >> The other option is to push it out to the last week

021of October. We can do that, too. >> Um, if >> you want to give them more time, we just got to we got to approve it before the end of the month. >> Yeah. I mean, I would look at the recommend I mean, recommendation from you, Jim, and Cara. I mean, I would I would rather more accurate and thoughtful numbers than than having a rush. So, >> you want to get out your calendars, we can look at maybe the 29th of October. That would be the the Wednesday of that week. >> 29th is fine. 30th, you wouldn't have a full board. >> Okay. >> 29th is fine with me, too. >> 29th is fine, Pat. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Are you sure? No. Yeah. Okay. As >> long as it's at six. >> No. >>

022Do you need it later or >> No, six is fine. >> Jim, does that work for you? >> Yeah. >> And you don't have to pull an eleator. >> Yeah. I can make the 29th work, too. >> Let's do the 29th. >> Sure. I move to approve October 29th, at 6:00 p. p.m. at the Prescott High School Library as a regular school board meeting for October 2025. >> Second motion in a second. All in favor? >> I oppose. >> That one carries. All right. Next one is consider updated handbook for the 2526 school year. The board uh looked at this last month. Um we sent out uh all the changes to the staff. They were highlighted in blue. Um got a few small comments back from two staff members. Um nothing dramatic, mostly clarification. So

023we cleaned up a little bit of the language a little bit. Um we added no violence on uh shirts that staff are allowed to wear um as part as part of one of the board members suggestion. Uh other than that, nothing really has changed since then with the exception of updating the bus driver in town routes. They call them there and back in the cities and there and back um out of the city. Uh bumping those up, which would allow us to most school districts in the area around us have a 2-hour minimum. Our hours are uh$1867 an hour. Um, so that change is um a little bit closer to that. It would bump up to a little over $30 an hour. And then um overnights, we're having a hard time recruiting bus drivers for

024overnights. So, uh, Rick Montreal, Heather and I, um, sat down and met, and we're proposing paying the staff, the drivers $1867 an hour as they drive, followed by um a $60 overnight stipen for basically while they're sleeping in the hotel. And the other thing we did was we took the instructional assistance and food service staff may exchange up to two additional sick days and school closures due to weather. That was a pilot program. Everything I can found find uh says that that worked wonderfully. Uh so that is basically just extending that in writing because it was would technically have sunseted uh this school year. Um but everything else pretty much stayed the same. >> Helen, you got any questions on on this? >> No. >> Vicki. >> Uh yeah. No questions. I'm happy that this

025was run through a process and um staff had some time for feedback and stuff like that. Uh I also that pilot program I think last year was the first year that we did it and I heard positive feedback with that too. So good. >> No questions. I mean we we talked about a lot of this stuff in workshops and and the past board meetings. So this is um sounds great. All right. entertain a motion. >> I move to approve the employee handbook for the 202526 school year. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. That carries. Item D, consider request for proposal for legal services for school district. It is just good policy to update uh all of your different contracts and um legal services

026is one that we've had for a while, but there are a lot of uh new companies out there. And so all we're asking is the ability to um request proposals from all the um legal services that are provided uh to various school districts around the state and uh seek their input. Um frankly, the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators recommends you do it every 5 years um just to make sure that we're getting the best service for our constituents and our administrators and our students. All right, Pat, do you have any questions or comments here? >> Uh, no. Um, I'm glad that we're I'm glad that we're reaching out and checking checking the market, make sure it's accurate, >> tiny. >> Um, did we give Weld Riley a heads up that we were going to

027do this? >> We've worked with them for a long time. >> Yep, we did not. But I would do that's one of my phone calls tomorrow morning. >> Sounds good. >> Good question, Vicki. >> Uh, no, nothing really to add. I agree with Pat. I think looking and asking is a good idea. >> No, >> I agree. >> All right, keep going here. We want to make a motion. >> I move to approve a request for proposals for legal services for Prescott School District. >> A second. >> We have a motion, a second. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. That one carries. And item E, consider second reading of updated or new Neola school board policies version 34.2. The only change from the August board meeting was in policy 5505 academic honesty. Uh we

028just >> what? Yeah. >> Um and that is going to um that policy will the only thing we added to that was and I don't know if I can get into this cuz I'm not logged in. Um, basically the policy we added in, we clarified that teachers are allowed to go to their principal if they have something that comes up new with AI or with other technical uh, programs. Uh, just because things change so fast. Um, and then the principal can approve it and if we need to, we can update policy because AI is changing so fast. >> T, did you have any questions? You were the one that kind of brought this up. Um, yeah, I can't remember if I brought that one up or not. I don't have questions on that, though. I'm

029I'm glad that we're looking at that. Um, I do think that we did talk about that actually. And then the other one that I had was the dress code stuff. Was that within this group? >> The dress code was actually in the handbook in the handbook. >> So, yeah, we took out weapons and and added violence. >> So, >> perfect. I didn't know if we had a policy on dress code that I thought we did. >> Yeah, that wasn't in this batch. The dress code question came up in the staff handbook and >> we put violence instead of weapons because that would >> Yep. >> eliminate our trap team from wearing their shirts. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So >> that works. >> Pat, no questions. >> No questions. >> Thank you. >> No questions. >>

030All right. Make a motion. >> I move to accept the second reading of the noted policies with version 34.2. two. >> A second. We have a motion, a second. All in favor? >> I >> oppos. That carries. We're done with business and we're on information discussion. First item is the Bray Architect. >> Noel Bray did the high school. So now I got to find the right right picture. >> Oh, that's not the one. So, River Valley did the two River Valley did the 2022 referendum. Bray did the um high school edition. So, they worked for 2014 to 2016. >> Um so, what you see here is the high school laid out. And the question that we asked them to do for us, and they did it for free, was would we be able to put

031this rectangular, this red rectangle here would be the CTE um wood processing lab for lack of a better term. >> I can try. There it is. Um, so this spot right here would be the uh where we'd put the CTE, wood processing sawmill, kiln type situation. They have run into a snag trying to get Excel to be able to come to you with a um actual bid on electricity to the site. So that's kind of where we're stalled at. We're waiting for um Excel to come through, but Bray was available. Like I said, they did this for free for us. Um because they had all the plans, they had all the plots. Um and they were able to show that yes, if we wanted to 5 to 6 years down the road, whenever it comes

032up, we could add a football field in the uh northeast corner, we could keep our existing um practice fields if need be or convert them into something else. And we just wanted to be able to show the board with and my KOA that without a doubt that building can sit right there and not be in any type of uh situation or any type of uh so that when we when it comes up hopefully sometime in the next couple months we can get Excel to to return our phone calls. >> Yep. Um >> Mike, do you want to come up and speak for us? Yeah, if >> that's okay. Just for the record, it's the brown box right down by the parking lot that we're talking about, right? >> And so nobody has to kind of

033get freaked out about we're not putting in a football field right now or anything like that. >> That's not there at all. The whole the whole purpose is we didn't want to build we didn't want to build the the pole shed and then have to move it 10 years down the road if we build a football stadium. So there are no plans to build a football stadium. There's no plans to the two practice fields right next there are where our current practice fields are and it doesn't interfere with those as well. And we went with Excel um this week and to bring in like singlephase service uh small fee like $2,000. But if we want to go 400 amp threephase, which is what you want if you're going to build and improve is put the

034electrical service in at that time. We're we're to buy the transformer is is probably 25,000. But we're we're going to go through the paperwork and try and get us um qualified and then it will be a minimum fee. That's that's kind of the hold back is um that if we if we say okay this is the type of equipment we're going to put in there and we want to be energy savings um there's going to be a motor maybe 10 horse like on a big huge planer or something for for working with the woodstro qualify for getting the three phrase brought in at a very small price. So that's kind of we kind of backed off said let's let's take some time and try and get that. Okay. Okay. Pat, do you got any questions

035for Mike at all or >> No, I mean, you guys said it all, but I I appreciate the effort. I think just for the board, I know one thing we talk about is long range planning, right? And this this up here that Ray did, and thanks to Clint and and their team for doing it. Um, it might be wrong. >> It it probably will be wrong, but uh it was important to to kind of plant a flag on something to make a good decision, right? and and and this is the best decision that we have today uh to not avoid other, you know, letting other good things happen. So, um I thought it was it was it was a lot of moving parts, but I appreciate Mr. Figgy and and uh Mike and Jim and

036everybody taking the proper steps. >> Yeah. No, absolutely no questions. I, you know, agree with Pat. This was our biggest concern is we know that down the road we have um a property that we have future hopes for. We don't know when, but we don't want to um get in the way of those hopes. Uh also, I we have a tech department that is just growing beyond our space, which is really a good problem for us to have. They came to us again with some ideas, suggestions, ways to keep improving, ways to grow. They always come with us with with solutions, but um sometimes we just got to slow them down a little bit. And there's some process and stuff that goes into this. And I think this was going to in the long run

037this will make their their next step in growth even better. So um thank you guys for the work with us. >> So was it cuz I had wondered about Bray Architects. I had never heard of them. So did they already have kind of this as a preliminary drawing when they designed the high school? >> Yeah. So they did all the plans for the high school. Um they laid out the original plot. they were able to um this is you can't see it when they built it, but this is actually built with all the contours and all the plumbing and all the and stuff like that. So, since they had the original ones, they were they were willing to do this uh >> for us. >> Well, kudos on reaching out. That was a that was

038probably a better way to handle all this than us trying to to measure and and estimate and guess and send Mike out there with a tape measure. So, yeah. Oh, >> no. I think they're pretty much I think. So, >> um just kind of as a reminder, uh the the shed itself, the brown box, what was the dimensions of the of the shed? 40 by 60 or >> that that's what we're talking about? 40x 60 foot square foot. >> 40 by 60 is is what we're looking at right now, right, Mr. Tree? So, yeah. Is that include is there potential that we would need to grow that at all or is that kind of like the optimal size that we we would go with? Do you remember? >> There will be room there to expand

039that. >> Yeah, it looks like it. >> We're going to precision that and bring in the utilities and service. So you can expand. >> Okay. >> That's where taking electric. >> Yeah. >> Where we bring electrical service in is very critical where we start building. >> Okay. And and just as a reminder, last year's budget when we when we figured out the the final numbers and we had surplus that we chose to earmark money for this year, I believe it was $100,000 for this project. Just it was kind of set aside as a as a separate line item on the fund balance. So it was it's it's part of it's part of it's it's baked in. We can choose to do it or not to do it, but we have the money set aside specifically

040for this reason. So, I just want to call that out for for people that if they're wondering where the money's coming from. This was coming it's coming it's it's a decision that was made on last year's budget. If anybody else >> has any comments on that, feel free to jump in. But >> well, this was a multi-purpose building, too, that when they talked about it, it was mainly for tech, but there was other um there was classroom space >> and then also if we needed to put um >> I'm going to get this wrong, sporting stuff in there, storage. Yeah. So, this is a multi-purpose building. So, yeah. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> And I do want to applaud Mike and and Josh and the team for taking the time to do it right instead

041of just trying to spend the money right away in the summer and get it done uh and get something up, but they want to they want to do it right so we can expand. So, but that's also where this drawing comes in. It shows us room to expand. >> Yeah. And if anybody's been in our techad area, it is it's uh first of all, it's quite impressive, but uh they're running out of room. So, I think this is it's I'm glad I'm glad we're planning for it and hopefully we can get her done here. Uh, next steps though. So, we're waiting we're going to be waiting on Excel to get back to us. Is that what is the next step? The the next step is the um the paperwork go to a licensed electrician that

042we're working with and hoping to get some paperwork this week. Then we will meet and fill that out and get that back there. We're hoping to get this project locked in with XL before they fall winter season. >> So, okay. Basically, we got about two months. >> Okay. Hopefully get this. >> So, this is going to have to come back to the board again for approval. >> I know. I know. We got the city here. Um there's there's certain approvals and permitting and and all that good stuff too that still has to be done, right? So, um everything that Mike and Jim have talked about are these are the right first steps for planning, but there's there's also a permitting process to go through. Okay. All right. Anything else on this one, guys? >> No.

043Okay. Uh, let's move on then. Uh, item B is the extension of Jewel Street. >> Good transition. Mr. Wolf, you ready? >> Yeah. First and foremost, I heard there was a building going on without permits. Gosh, >> we haven't even approved to pay for it yet. >> So, what what I am here for is um as the agenda says, what we're looking at is a possible extension of Jewel Street. So, um if you look at the map up here, basically right where um Jewel Street currently ends, the asphalt that is, it turns to gravel. Um so we were approached earlier this or earlier this year. Um we own a parcel uh which is the highlighted P there. Um and the developer which is a local resident was interested in building a single family home on

044this property. So we have had the property appraised. At the same time um Joel Maria Rice who live across the street um because we're the asphalt engine turns to gravel. So technically right now um that property is actually at their driveway is accessing uh school district property and then they continue on to go to Jewel Street which is then public right away. So basically what we wanted to reach out and discuss is first we're not sure if we're moving forward with the sale of the property. That's one of the things um we'll continue to have that discussion. But one of the areas that we felt like last year we did Mineral Street, we did a Millan overlay project and we had a resident on that area that was on a gravel road and we made

045sure that we wanted to pave that. So regardless of if we end up selling the property or not, one of the things that we wanted to at least have an initial discussion with is if the school district was willing to um extend that right away by 100 ft. Um, again, that doesn't mean that we're going to move forward with the actual sale of the property or with the actual project itself, but we want to at least have that initial discussion to see if it's even feasible because if it's not feasible, um, then we wouldn't move forward with with anything at this point. So, um, that's really the initial conversation we want to have with the school district. Um, kind of open it up to you guys for comments and questions of what you have on

046this project. Uh, we're not expecting any final approvals tonight. If ultimately this project did move forward, um we'd be looking to dedicate it as part of a certified uh survey map. So that would come to you again at a later date. We'd work with Jim and get that prepared. That's something that you're willing to entertain. So I'll turn it over to you for >> um first of all, does anybody have any questions on what we're talking like what what piece of property we're talking about here? Is Tony, do you have any questions on on the map? >> Um I don't for just to kind of get everybody acquainted with it. I believe it's, you know, we built those fields up uh kind of down the street here and they're the it's the property right after

047those fields, right? It's kind of in the there's a line of houses right behind the fields or right on the side of the fields and it's extends right past that street there, right? Yeah. And then the P is that your uh city property then? Okay. So, that buds up basically to that third field over there. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. It's weird if you look on the the county map for our what the district owns. Yeah. We've got this tiny little sliver >> that goes out and then goes towards Jewel Street and then comes back out. It's a very odd layout. >> So, basically, our property runs here and then down into the ravine. >> Yep. >> Mhm. >> Roughly in that area. >> And Okay. So, I just I want to make sure we're

048really clear on what we're talking about here. We're talking about the red the red box is is what we're talking about >> negotiating with the city. Correct. The the what's the what's the green box? That's a 12. There's a It looks like a Is it a trail easement? What is that? >> Trail easement. >> So, yeah. One of the things that we are considering is it shouldn't say easement. It really should say trail right away, but a potential connection. um if we were to do a trail there, if there was ever a connection as part of that Ky River trail system, it would, you know, that would obviously any connection would have to go through. But as we look at future planning, if we if there was ever a trail connection there, we'd have to

049have the rightway dedicated in place to make that connection. >> So is that green? Is that ours? >> It is not. So that would be set aside separately. Y dedicated right away. >> Okay. >> But we own the property just to the north of it. >> Correct. You order the property just to the north and then that that red area >> to the south. >> Okay. Y >> Matt, kind of a silly question, but I don't I just don't remember. We've looked at this a number of times. Um to the north of the trail right ofway, proposed trail right away. Is that is that in line with kind of the Kulie River Trails master plan? That's where it would connect to >> if it utilized the district property. >> The the trail the proposal right

050now has it running basically on the back of all those baseball fields. take a jog over and do that. So, >> and the rationale behind it is obviously I think we've had conversations past some of the members um but that property that um is owned that connects and balloons out into a much larger piece has some very steep contours. So, we have the the thought is if ultimately we can't get a trail through there. We haven't had it surveyed and we haven't got to that point cuz really we're working um you know McGee Park and then trying to go north. So, it's a waste before we're going to get there. But um since we haven't surveyed it, we're not sure if a trail connection is going to work. Ideally, that would still be the best

051connection we can go through that cuz it's much more scenic and beautiful than um so uh basically just trying to keep our options open in terms of long term. And I and I believe that all of that that trail easement the P probably if you go kind of so I think that's is it to the west of it like kind of right behind it leading up to the field that's where our cross country meet it goes right along that kind of route. So, yeah. >> Um, one other question, Matt, and just I'm looking at the on my screen. Um, the we'll call it the east side of the road extension, the red box. Um, there is a there's another black line. Does does the district right now own the entire red shaded area? >> Yes.

052>> Okay. I just wanted to make sure I was getting the property line um correct there. All right. >> Yeah. And then our, correct me if I'm wrong, our property line actually extends all the way to where it says 100 ft of road. It keeps going that way and there's that little brown that black line there. That's where our property kind of widens out. So >> sort of see it there on the >> Yeah, you don't have to do it on the screen. >> Yeah, you get that view. >> You just might be a little easier to see. I just want to make sure all we're looking at the same thing. Yeah, they just want the little basically just accentual street. >> Yeah, if they decide to sell that property. >> So then the light

053gray is district property. >> The blue is the city's parcel. I believe this trapezoid down here is Mr. Rice's property. Correct. Just a little note, the little handwriting, which I know means nothing, comes up way short of where my property line actually is. >> Okay. >> If anybody else wants I have a post down there, you'll never find it. There's like 10. So, if you want me to walk down it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, >> Maddie. Looking you. So, this is just getting in our hands now. We'll talk about it, I'm sure. Yeah, I guess it's just getting into your thought process if you want to move forward. I think we're just looking for um kind of what your ideas. We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. You know, you're saying

054pump the brakes. This isn't something we're interested in, then cuz if if if the ultimate decision is you guys do want to are are willing to afford this that we would, you know, do the due diligence of putting together the the proper legal documents and things like that and getting to you guys. Okay. That would be a combination of senior corporation our attorney's work that >> would yeah um the the cost for the road extension is borne by who? The city the development >> the road itself would be born by the city and we that would still be up for discussion. So I don't want to again I don't want to say the city hasn't proven anything that the idea at first though is to >> get some that's the initial thought though. >> We

055would ultimately bear the cost for this. Matt, do you have a time frame of when you need to hear back or would hope to hear back by? >> Um, ideally, if we were to do this, we'd look at it as a spring, summer, >> 2026, so end of year. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. And I I appreciate the putting in the trail right away, getting that in there right away just in case um as all of this is new and we've Clear River Trails has gotten Landmark Conservancy got the land over on the other side and we've got McGee Park expanding and trying to get all of that worked out. So, so, um, I appreciate that. Looking ahead, at least we still have that option open for, uh, access. So, thank you. >>

056Oh, do you have any questions? No, >> I think um, everyone's pretty much asked questions. So, this will be We're just looking at this for next month, right? Like possibly if we decide that it's something we want to do. Yeah, I think maybe Jim and I can take it offline and we'll we'll figure something out to bring to the board and have a dialogue on it. >> Okay. >> Because I think we'll end up getting into numbers and you know if we if it's something we do want to move forward with, we'll have to put a number on it and work with Matt on >> on that too probably if that's if that's the case or open it up, you know, I mean that's the other option. So I think it's just it's just trying

057to get it get the ball rolling a little bit. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Sounds good. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks, ma'am. Moving on is item C, update on replacing buildings and grounds director on approve retirement. Yes, I've asked Mr. like not to retire a couple times, but um no uh we've talked about um with the board uh the idea of um putting forth uh a hiring process and getting this posted uh in September and then try to have somebody onboarded by January so they can spend uh from January to June learning everything to do with our $147 million worth of property. that Mr. Hoya takes care of on a daily basis. So, um >> yeah, >> just kind of you have the uh you have the copy of the job posting or the

058job description that we have and we're hoping to post it um and get this going within the next week or so. We'd post it on the district website. We'd used LinkedIn. We'd use a couple other services. Um, some of those services cost $200 to $300, but again, we're looking at taking care of $147 million worth of property and and equipment. Um, so spending a couple thousand is well worth it. There's also a group called uh Wisconsin School Leadership Council that posts a lot of uh building and grounds positions and we try to cast as wide a net as possible. And hopefully everybody who's in the audience, everybody who's listening will share our Facebook post with the world um and get it out to everybody. >> Colin, any questions on this one? >> No, I it's

059pretty extensive, so getting it out there sooner rather than later is fine. >> No questions. It's just um yeah, the fact that we have to put it out there, we probably knew it was coming. >> But uh um yeah, I think getting someone in and and Mike giving getting the opportunity to uh give a thorough introduction to some someone to take his place is a really good idea. >> Yeah. Um, Mike, I want to start by last month, I think we, um, read your and approved your resignation, um, your retirement, and we didn't take an opportunity to really speak too much of it. You weren't here in the audience, but this is this is a really big deal for us, and you have been, I mean, I think you've been here since I've been on

060the board. I've learned so much from you. I know all of our, you know, people on this board as well as superintendent. Um, this is we're we're going to really miss you. So, you've done a ton for us. I I think back to the days when we had kind of like scratch paper of you know ideas and all all the documents now and how we've gone. You've really helped set us up to move forward in a really strong manner. I also want to point out that we had no succession plan like this um for Rex Bakuza. We didn't bring somebody on early to train in. I mean, and it just speaks to the value of the knowledge I think that you hold within this district that as a as a single person, you hold a

061lot of that knowledge and um I I think this is important for us to do and I I hope you're part of that process and and your feedback is really important to us. So, thank you. >> Yeah. Um kudos and and we'll Mike, we'll get another chance to to celebrate you, but thank you for everything. Today is about talking about how we onboard and how we orientate and and I do believe that's really really important and would love to get some of your feedback especially as it relates to making sure a new person you know is available for up you know for those shoulder months or up you know winter or summer you know how big of a deal that is to you to learn how to operate these buildings but um if uh um

062we know that it will be a cost um but I do believe that it's you know we can't afford the risk of of not getting it right though either So, um, my recommendation would would certainly be to advocate, um, a really good onboarding period and and hopefully Mike is is able to willing to help design that. >> All right. Yeah. Well, Mike, I mean, we would, Luckily, you gave us time to do this. I mean, sometimes we, you know, we're scrambling. So, you give us a whole year to kind of figure this out and that's I really appreciate that immensely. All All the rest of the board does, too, I'm sure. gym. So, um we can we can have an opportunity to to bring somebody on and and train in. So, that I appreciate that.

063This is a no-brainer for me. So, >> I also think that um posting it now, looking at it now, um I think if I remember October 31st or something was kind of the deadline if I recall. Was it October 31st? I or was that for the >> We would hope to have them hired by late October. >> Yeah. Okay. Um but I also we do have time. So I just hope that we get it right too and I don't think there's a rush to do it. So if we don't have the right people applying at that time we we have time to keep looking for the right person. So yeah >> it's definitely yeah an ideal plan would be start of January because >> let's be honest if it's whether it's somebody internal or whether

064it's somebody external >> they're going to have to find a replacement too and if we can give you know that person a month or so before they leave >> their position. >> All right. So you got what you need for us? I mean, >> yep. This Yeah, this is just an opportunity for the board to to provide feedback. >> All right, move on. Item D is teaching and learning update. >> He always comes with his own tech. >> I'm going to bring a clicker one of these. >> Yeah, just kind of mess around. >> This is new to me. the laser pointer. >> You're just going to sit back for this one. >> Um, just want to give you just a little update from the teaching and learning department. Um, how things went this summer.

065Um, and some of the things that we're leaning into in year two here. So, building thinking classrooms was something that I came to the board with about a year and a half ago. um after conversations with our principles um their um leaders um people that were reading the book and going through a book study uh and as Mr. Reef has has told our staff it's probably the best educational book that he's read in 30 years. Right? So the big thing is thinking and why why do we want kids thinking in our classroom? Um if you remember about a decade ago we started on this journey of what's the daily desired experience we want to have both for our students and for our staff. Um and in order for our staff to create that for our

066students we had to look at what do our staff need. And that's really where collaboration Monday came from. This time that we have dedicated K12 across our district unique to um very few districts have this dedicated time, this 90minute early early out that gives us dedicated time to look at our craft and how do we change that um focusing on those four questions of being a PLC and now we're leaning into what does it look like for students and this thinking classroom uh journey that we're on. Year two is is starting off and as we we went into year two we added a few new members to the to the PD team. We have a we had a number of them that went to including Sarah scores in the audience and national building thinking classroom

067conference that's a two-day conference that's only about thinking classrooms and how do we get kids thinking deeper and thinking longer. Um so returning Jen Jen Lingers uh returning Nathan McFeders um and she's a kindergarten first grade teacher. Nathan McFfeeders from the middle school, Kila Kinnaman um from the high school and and myself are returning and then new Sarah score grade four. Justice Layman a middle school English language arts teacher and Cam Meers high school science teacher. So as you can see yes the building theme classrooms book is written specifically for mathematics but really only two two of the chapters really are math specific. everything else um really is applicable to all different areas and that's why we're expanding into those different areas as as much. Um one of the things that we really try to

068get through to our staff is having them experience what does a thinking task feel like and look like. So one of the things that we did this year is half of our staff participated in a task while the other half just observed. They observed what the trainers were doing or the teachers. They observed how the conversations were going. They went around to different um whiteboards that we had. We had 12 of these whiteboards in the uh cafeteria here at the high school and we had 100% of our teaching staff and we're collaborating with each other. We're having conversations the same way that the students do. Um so we had two different tasks that they did. One actually was about that graphic that I just put up about the learning experience and what do we want

069that to sound like, feel like, um and what what would that experience be like? And then the other one um was maybe a a little more we talk about curricular and non-curricular task is a non-curricular task. We just gave um the staff members different factors and said which one do you think has the most negative impact on the environment and we started with three factors um so they could kind of have the relatively easy entry point and then we just kept adding more and more and more factors until we got to about a dozen dozen different factors. Um, and then we had some debriefs after those conversations. Um, and as you can see here, there random groups. Um, we have Erica Keyser here is a library media specialist, Helen Rabel, and then one of our

070new teachers. Um, Melan Rabel is a fifth grade teacher for a long time. And then one of our new teachers, Miss Barker, a science teacher at the middle school. So again, we're following the same practices that um we're modeling same practices that we want to see in our classrooms as well. Here, Kayla Kinnman. Um, she's got the BTC shirt on the middle. she's re leading a debrief about um the task that they had just experienced and sort of what was their experience from the viewer point of view and then also from the participant. Um and then another one here it's kind of hard to tell Sarah scores over here and this is a larger group and again we're took two two um different groups had the same questions and we put those um boards together

071and then how did where were we alike where were we different how could you use that now as a conversation piece inside your classroom. Um so we're into year two. We've uh just completed recently uh survey of our staff where they on that journey. All of the PLC's across the district are setting building thinking classroom specific goals for the year um which align to the building goals as well and and our um uh professional practice goals that we have for ourselves. So it's a nice way to feather all of that together. So it isn't just about something more, it's about something better. Um, and before I go any further, I would like to open the mic up to Miss Kaden Hillbrandt and her experience in thinking classrooms and what she's been noticing over the last

072two years. >> Over the last two years, I was just going to speak to >> this week. This week, I had Mrs. Myers who you just mentioned went to the conference as my first hour environmental science teacher. And one of the things we did within the first week was create a class constitution. And the way we went about doing that, as I recognize now, is similar to the way that you did with the staff where we split into groups and answer questions on whiteboards, then combined as a group and talked about why did you say this? Why did you pick this? And then he did that throughout the whole day. And by the end, he had composed just a good list of I'd say what does it mean to be a scientist? Because it was

073a science classroom as well as I think another question was what makes a classroom like a good learning environment? what factors go into that and that's just I think that's so recent that's why it popped into my mind but I definitely recognize the shift this year so yeah >> perfect so you're seeing we're you know we're going from theory to practice now and you know starting to make that some of those standard practice and then how do we refine some of those practices um because some people aren't quite there on their journey and then there's others that are chomping and going going so we're looking at how do we differentiate for our our own staff and some people are on a three year trajectory and some people might be on a five or six year

074trajectory and how do how do we get there in the end right so that was building clean classrooms again thank you to the board for supporting that initiative and continuing to support that um act 20 something I've been coming to the board with since 2023 um we've started our training for the year our master plan we should be done by the March professional development is kind of that that day is kind of test day all of our teachers uh are going through a Cox campus is the name some of the online modules that we're using. And yes, you could just click through these modules and pass your test with 80% and be done with it. Um, so one of the things that this structured literacy team, Megan Smith, Amy Figgy, Stacy Helders, um, Sarah and

075I are more there for moral support and just uh, give direction. Um, they're really taking on that lion share though of this collaboration. Monday, we got all of the K5 plus the um interventionists and special education teachers who are going through all this at our middle school. Not required at all for middle school, but this is something we see value in. We all got together a as a large group and then we did two modules and now we talked about practice with those modules. How is our practice going to need to change? And then the other part is because we know on the end of this next year we're going into a curriculum review and adoption is what are our look fors? What are the things that we're going to say in this new curriculum

076these are our musthaves. Um and how does that relate to the new learning that we're doing as we're going through the structured literacy. So this is a full year of training. Again the goal is to be completed by March. Uh there's about 25 hours of modules and that's only if you just click through it. Right? So there's probably about 35 hours of modules and then the really important part of coming back together as a professional development or uh professional learning group to learn from each other and how do we implement that and again I can't say enough about collaboration Mondays when I get calls from other districts. What are you guys doing in Prescott? You're top 10 in uh district in the state in academics. You're top 9% in growth. What are you doing? You're

077not telling me there's no silver bullet. It's collaboration one day. It's getting your teachers together. It's the best profession some of the best professional development you can offer is right down the hall. So figure out a structure that allows that. So um the only other part to the act 20 update there wouldn't be wouldn't be DPI without a new update. Um so we have some new so every little check mark there you can see um not very easily though. uh 4K, you can see that in the fall and in the spring. We have to do one in the fall, two different um uh screeners in the spring. If you look at uh 5K, quite a few more in the fall, winter, spring. Um grade one really gets hammered in the fall and they actually added

078three new ones this year. Um on top of that, DPI went with Pearson who owns um Ames Web. Um that was their contract that they awarded two years ago. um they had not done their reorming since 2015. Some things have happened and education has changed since 2015. So this summer now that they had all of Wisconsin's data, they reormed. So now we are going off of different proficiency levels and different benchmarks. Um so last year when I was here, we talked about how many kids we have on on reading plans. um the way they renormed it, they kind of the way we talk, they kind of are setting us up for failure. They it's a really low threshold in the in the fall right now. So, we don't anticipate a lot of new students being

079put on reading plans. But then it is a huge step to winter and then just a small step to spring. So, we are not sitting on our laurels and saying, "Oh, we don't have a lot of kids." We're looking at those kids. We're going we're looking at the winter benchmark. How many of them would not meet the winter benchmark if we went by that? And we're really starting to program for all of them to try to catch those kids now rather than wait to winter and go, "Oh jeez, we lost already a half a year of programming for these kiddos." So that's our act 20. >> When and when is the winter benchmark? When does that have to be done? Um the winter benchmark starts uh in December and it goes through I think it's

080the first week in February is um so you have a window that the state says somewhere in that window. Okay. >> Um typically what we have found out actually is most successful is if we screen the kids before winter break and they get that two week of completely off and maybe on some electronics and new toys. We try to screen them just beforehand. Okay. >> Um so that way we catch them at their best. I was hoping that there was some sort of window because I thought, "Oh, great. It starts in January." I'm like, "That's not going to be good." >> Yeah. So, so DBI has given us windows. Um, we are doing our Ames West web assessment this week. You started it. We'll wrap it up next week. Okay. >> So, we'll we'll be

081done with that. Um, and then we already have the kids that were on reading plans last year, including the new fourth graders. They have already started their programming this week, Monday, already. So, we're kicking off the school year of already meeting kids where they're at and not waiting for a new screener. We already know they were on a plan. We're going to continue to try and any other questions for Michael you guys. >> Michael, you said that it's a total of about 30 35 hours. How many hours are we in yet? >> Can you say that again? >> So, you modules are >> Yeah, the module. Yeah. >> How many hours have we given so far? >> First complete. Yeah. Um we've done two modules out of the 11. Um they were six total hours

082of module time probably more like seven hours. Um Sarah's in the audience. >> She says eight. >> Uh >> so we have again we have a >> different learning. >> I'm going to say 8 hours probably about is what it's taken. Um, the one thing that we did do is we did build that into the earned service week, but we also treat our staff like professionals and we say we know that you are so interested before the the parents get there on back to school night to have your room set up to have things ready. So, we're giving you these 6 hours they're scheduled for you. But if you would rather do this at 9 9:00 at night on your couch and click through a module, um, go ahead and do that. It's just the

083due date. We give them about a month to have it done. will build in the six hours, but then you're a professional and do it how you want. Some people like to just jump in and get it done. Um, and then others would rather stretch it out. And then some people um, right at the very end are completing it, but we did have 100% success of completion. So, awesome. We're happy with that. >> Thank you. >> All right. Anything else? >> All right. Thanks, Michael. We're moving on. Item E is budget and audit updates. So, uh, Mike, if you want to come up for this part. Um, couple things we are looking at. Um, the board asked us to take a look at what we have done on the 2022 and the 20 uh 2022

084referendum, what was left, what's come out of fund 46, what is left out of fund 49. Um, and then a summary of the work completed. Um, Mike's been here through all of this and he's 20 times more talented than me at it. So, where do you want to start, Mike? Okay. Um, well, I guess just kind of quick summary, you know, we had that big long sheet that we had on there. What we did in 23 24. I'm I'm not going to go back through that on this spreadsheet. We can just mark in J and kind of cop that. That information is also on my spreadsheet what they did. Um, do you want to look at the spreadsheet, Mike? Is that what you're saying? Or which one you want to look at? >> Well, we

085go for this. >> So, yeah, this is a summary of what was done this summer. >> Yeah, there there's probably a few more things on there that we had. Um, now there's specifically just for the summer. I kind of added stuff on the referendum of my spreadsheet because we did stuff I think it last come to October like 2024 I think we kind of gave a summary of what was done. Um so if you look up there um approved referendum projects fund 49. Um the bottom one with dollar amounts that's the ones that Mark and Johnson had on. That's most of the stuff that was done in the summer. Um, and then of course we have the bleachers to be done in October next month. But some of the stuff that was done since the

086last update that I spoke on, um, we finalized emergency lighting at uh, 125 elm, installed that grease trap this summer. Um, added a magnetic filter for our heating loop. Um we put uh LED lighting and 125m gym. Uh destroication fans were also updated in there the um um some remaining cabinet heaters at Milan Elementary. Um then we we added in the older part of the 1963 wing. We added some updated some faucets and shut off valves that were nonfunctional. um bathroom partitions at uh 1220 um both in the lower level in the locker rooms. So, they're all composite instead of the old rusty metal red ones. Um like I say, coming up is the bleachers in October. Um and of course the dividing curtain coming early. So, that is that is done already in that

087building. and uh some of the other and I just listed some other projects we did along with the fund 49. Um, as you can see there, um, um, roof hatch and some of these we might have moved into 149 for for monies on that. um the roof hatch, updated some LED lighting in the new wrestling room, of course that we had the rubbering flooring installed where uh replaced some lights in the bus garage in the main shop part to LED. Um electrical panel upgraded up there. Uh we moved some locker rooms from 125 Elm up to the middle school in the gym. um replaced a double fire door. Um then we had some walkoff carpets we also did at 125 elm hand washing and eye washing stations upgraded in the shop. What we did is

088the ones we took out of the Malone Elementary when we put the new ones in, we repurposed it over in the shop. So >> Oh, nice. >> Um added a bunch of mulch. Um yeah, just a lot of lot of little stuff. As long as we're at the project, um we were able to do some was a local, some of them we did with Mark and Johnson also. So, >> hey Mike, can I just jump in really quick on the colorcoded subtotals there? That the yellow was the estimate and the green was what it actually was. So, we came in under budget on those. >> Yep. >> Yeah. It's it's probably more like 104,000 versus 101. So, yeah, it's it's coming under 100 under 100 under 100 under 100 under 100 under 100 under. So,

089>> Yep. So, and then also looking at this sheet. Um, is there any other questions on the referendum projects that we already did or Okay. So, when we started this, this is that new long range spreadsheet. We're kind of incorporating all this stuff and then off of the tabs. So, then um when you get down to other projects for 2026, this is when we take stuff off of my worksheet and off of the tabs. And when they get to, you know, like three, five years out, we're going to move them to here so we can start looking at them and and start saying, "Okay, let's let's plan on it. What do we got in budgets and and whatever, you know?" So, um I see some of them I marked as fun 49. I'm not quite

090sure what exact dollar amount we have, but there's some of these things we could do in 2026 with some fun 49 money. Um, so I kind of highlighted ones that would approve that or have or could be approved under that cuz they were on the list. Um, so there's uh quite a bit of stuff there. Like always, we have more on our list than to do. So that's why we look at it so we can plan out, you know, taking 3, four years, whatever to get these done. Um, some of the stuff you see in blue are kind of getting like we should take care of right away. Um, uh, Malone Elementary, we got one one door frames get really bad. I would recommend replacing that next summer. The other ones just cuz of the

091age. If funds are available, I would recommend doing them. If not, you you probably got a few more years left on them and so on. Roofs are always something that's coming up, you know. You know, we just did a bunch of roof projects. >> I know >> these weren't in those time frames when we started this looking at all that stuff in 2018 and 2019. So, they didn't meet the threshold to put on there. >> And so, now we are 6, seven years later. Uh, some of these roofs are getting close to that timeline. So, >> so and um some of the stuff I I'm hoping like in November I can have more estimates for you on this stuff. and uh then we can say let's do this. Going to do a little more research

092on some of the stuff and get some uh prices, maybe even some better prices. Most of the estimates are pretty good, but there's some stuff on here I really I really want to get some estimates on um actually some pretty good numbers, you know. Um quite a few years ago, we started doing M Elementary getting all the the carpet and the BCT and updating it. And then we probably haven't done any for I don't know five or seven years, whatever. So we're kind of down to the last few rooms there. So we're going to get some estimates on that. So we can look at doing that stuff. Um some of the stuff um we can oversee ourselves. some of it. Um if you take a a larger project, you know, whether you're going to do

093a large roof prop project or uh that one um one rooftop unit down at 125 L, which is the dehumidification unit for the threetory part of the building and that is they have about a 20 25 year life cycle that was put on the roof in post six. So we're getting to that the end of that life cycle. um working on a couple different vendors trying to get some good estimates on that. Um so that that I'll be bringing forward with uh some prices. Anybody have any questions here? >> Um I just want to clarify. So the highlighted blue ones there, those are the ones basically the school within this year we need to do or you would recommend doing. Yeah, those are the ones that are the, you know, they're like >> now. Yeah.

094>> Yeah. Yeah. And then do those or most does most of that fall within the budget that you have right now? >> Um, probably not. >> Okay. >> So, but I mean if there's fund $49, that's where we have to look at what do we have left for fun $49. >> Okay. >> And get some more of these prices uh estimated out >> and then we can say, okay, this is what we have. Okay. >> In our our regular maintenance budget, >> fund 46 and fund 49. So basically, you know, the three buckets and say, "Okay, let's >> pay for this out of that, this out of here." Yep. >> No, that's going to have to wait. You know what I mean? >> And that's what I hope we come maybe November, December. >> Okay.

095>> Kind of discuss some of that more in detail. >> Sounds good. >> Yeah. Cara, I think last month you told us this too, but along with that as well, maybe just a reminder like maybe on a summary sheet of when when when funds are liquid and when they are not when just cuz we always ask the question we always so you don't anything else on thanks. Thanks for moving on. Uh we'll move on to item F review draft of preliminary budget. >> Mike, I'm sorry. Yeah. Was it? Sorry. We we had a bunch of documents. I didn't know if we were going to go through them all. I think the original intent, the original ask was on the the $15 million referendum project. Where are we out? Where are we at for financial closeout?

096Are we are we budget? Are we over budget? What do we got to do to close up with River Valley Architects and Market and Johnson? >> So, if you look at this one, Pat, thank you. >> Carrie, you can probably talk to this better than I can to having been there, but um this is what we're looking at spending right around that $15 million mark total. Um $15.1 million if when we finalize everything out. Um it's looking like right now I believe uh that's should be a pretty accurate number. Um we still have a few bills coming back. Um our current fund balances you asked about fund 46 and fund 49. I don't have what's liquid at what time cuz for example um we just bought $500,000 in CDs and fund 46, but those are

097fund 46 has 1.2 2 million in it and fund 49 has $79,000 in it. And like Mike said, we can look at which one of those projects can come out of there. Again, fund 49 can be used any building except for the high school because of the way the referendum was written. And then fund 46 can be used for any type of long-term planning project. Just for clarification on that, the um fund 49 is all liquid and fund 46 that under half a million that we just invested in sen is locked up. >> So you still have about 700 800,000 that's liquid there too. What is >> so the one the 162,000ish over over right and and and we talked about this as on a project by project basis but um that that overage is

098what we're going to use fund 46 or fun 49 to cover right as we as we kept picking on uh additional projects and okay thanks >> yeah so the $79,000 um market and Johnson has given us an approximate on this fall work that they're doing of $81,000 that's if um all of the credits that they're they owe to us and the cost of the um project work that they still have to do like I think it's in October and so that will leave you about $620,000 you have 149 good >> okay cuz that we have bleachers to pay for that's going to come out of that >> that's900 they're giving >> so that's included in the 15 million 162 >> project work >> right that Yep the bleacher cost is included in the 15162 too.

099>> Sorry to put you on the spot. >> No, it's okay. So above that on So if you scroll up left the River Valley um and Market and Johnson. So I believe when Courtney put this slide together that >> the total of River Valley and Market and Johnson. So the 2526 Market and Johnson that 81,539 that's a project work that we still have not paid for that's coming up. Right. So the total of all of those things would be the 15 million with the upcoming work, >> right? And and and the work that's upcoming is the bleachers in the middle school, >> right? Good. >> Yep. Yeah. >> That's what that's the only page >> is the bleachers in the budget. >> Okay. Perfect. [Music] >> Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions on

100this? >> So just I just want to recap this. Oh, so like the fun 49 balance right now is 709303. >> Correct. >> And that is a did I'm just trying to articulate this this bleachers are already accounted for. >> But that'll knock it down to about $620,000. >> That's what I want. I I'm sorry. >> Yeah. So So once we pay for the bleachers, the fun 49 balance will be roughly $620,000. >> Thank you. Thank you. And how long do we get to keep that account open for? Cuz I thought we had to cap it. Is that is that something that we can continue to >> we can continue with it because the balance is low enough that there's not IRS penalty >> that's interest on it so we can keep that project work

101that Mike is suggesting your best option right now would be to take the fund to use that >> right right on one of those on the three buildings that it it applies to >> okay we're in a good spot >> there's always more to do but it's it's a good place to Yeah, I mean they have some funds available 20 years ago. >> Yeah. >> There say like 5 years ago. >> All right. Are we good? >> We're going to move on then uh to item F, review draft of preliminary budget. Um, so this is my first time going through this in Prescott, so I don't know exactly how much to explain, but um, the way the school districts, state of Wisconsin budget works is our budget year runs from July 1st to June 30th

102of each year. So our budget year ended June 30th of 2025 and our new year starts July 1st of 2025. However, it's not until October 15th that they actually tell us how much money we get to spend. So between July 1st and now with the October 29th board meeting, we are estimating and estimating and estimating and these numbers technically get changed by the DPI on a daily basis. So Cara and I are going to give you our best uh information as of yesterday, but you will see different numbers from us on September 24th and probably again on um October 29th. Uh, one of the biggest challenges to most school districts in Wisconsin, uh, the average school district has lost 6.1% of its student body. Um, our projection is for,242 students. Um, the thing is though,

103uh, you are on a three-year average. So, if you look at that bottom line, um, we went from 1310 to 1254 to 1242. You take that three-year rolling average and we get funding for approximately 1,268 students. Again, third Friday count is coming up here and that is the big issue. We get $12,654 per pupil. So that gives us a revenue limit of $16 million. When you put that all in together, one of the great things about Wisconsin is in 1993, the state set the per pupil spending limits based on simply the previous year's expenditures. So here's some examples. The Jibralar area school district in far northeastern Do County gets $24,657 per student. This is as of last year. Washburn got $28,818. Prescott gets $11,399 last year. So Washurn area student is worth almost more than

104two and a half times what a Prescott student is worth according to way the state of Wisconsin allows us to spend money on students. They have done a good job in the last few years. There were school districts down around eight or $9,000 per student. The low revenue revenue limit now is $11,000. Our friends to the north and Hudson get $12,673. Here is our area uh schools. Uh Hudson, like we said, was 1263 673. Amry is about almost 12,000. We are second from the bottom at 11,379. And um but if you take a look, Woodville, Baldwin, Woodville, Ellsworth, Oyola, and River Falls are at the state minimum. So we only receive $74 more dollars than the lowest funded district in the state and $1,274 less than Hudson. So if the state of Wisconsin applied their

105funding formula to us using Hudson's numbers, we'd have an extra $1.6 million. Despite this inequity, we're the highest performing academic district in the Middle Border Conference. As Michael said this a little earlier, we uh outperform Hudson. We outperform River Falls. We're in the top 10% of the state in Wisconsin and top 9% in student growth. The other thing that the state of Wisconsin decided to do um is in 2009 it decided to decouple aid and revenue limits from inflation. They used to be tied into inflation. As inflation went up, our uh ability to raise funds went up. If you go back to 2009, and this is last year's numbers, because again, we don't have this year's numbers yet, it's $3,380 per student. If we take that and multiply it by the number of students, that's

106$4.25 million extra we would have to spend. One of the reasons I came to Prescott is because we are very pro- educational school district and we have a very very supportive community with the referendums. If we had the $4.2 million extra um or the extra money that Hudson has, we probably would not have been going to referendum. I wasn't here uh at that time, so I can't say, but I feel pretty comfortable about that. State of Wisconsin continues to fall behind um the US average. In 2015, we are exactly at the US average. The average student per pupil spending in the United States is $16,562 $26. Again, last year's numbers and uh our 2023 numbers, Wisconsin in 2023 was an average of $14,882. So, that gap continues to grow. We used to be a high

107spending state. Now we're a lower spending state um nationwide. And if you ask why that matters, it really matters in Prescott because we are a mile and a half away from Hastings where Minnesota is one of the higher spending uh districts. So as a result of the state level budget, we got one pot of money for the whole state general aid. Madison and Rine both passed very very large referendums. That means they get a bigger piece of that giant state aid pot. For the first time in 20 plus years, the state did not add any money to the general aid. I will note that the state currently has an estimated almost $5 billion surplus sitting down in Madison. And here's the kicker and the board. I apologize. I don't know what to do about it

108except for to be transparent, honest with the numbers. Last year, the Prescott got $8,777,597. This year, as of yesterday, we are estimated at getting 7,813,260. That is just short of a million or $964,317 or an 11% cut in state aid. If the state doesn't give us this money and we're going to keep all our programs and we're going to keep everything running, our only option is to tax the local taxpayers. >> Can I interject for the question? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So, just on that last slide, the difference between last year and this year aid um is that has a lot to do with our student enrollment numbers. Correct. >> Not somewhat our student enrollment numbers. The biggest thing is our well kind of that's half the equation. It's property values to student enrollment. So

109if you have low students and high property value you get what's called negatively tertiary aided and I can do a whole presentation on that if you want. Uh for the first time last year we were8% I believe they're projecting us to be a 6% negative aid. So as our property values go up and our students go down. Yes, we've hit that point where that flip comes and this is that flip of about a million dollars where as our student aid number of students go down and our property values go up. That's the challenge. >> Thank you. >> I should pause if anybody else has questions. Please ask questions as you as you go along. >> I'm okay. Um, you also hear a lot about the $325 per pupil for 400 years. Um, the state uh

110honored that. That was passed by the approved upheld by the Supreme Court. But again, for the first time in 20 years, there was no increase in state matching funds. What they've done for the last 20 years is that 325 would increase our aid of 325 per pupil. um or at least typically it's been at least half to twothirds of those funds would be provided by the state. Uh the state legislature this year decided to add zero dollars to that 325. So all the newspaper reports of $1.4 billion for the students of Wisconsin is true, but all that money comes on local taxpayers. If you do the math for uh our number of students, you get 40 $412,000. Um which we can raise and we need to raise to keep our teachers, to keep our programs,

111to keep our staff, to keep the great education that we're doing. But uh that's going to have to fall on the burden of local taxpayers because that's the way the state legislature and the governor signed the budget. that 325 wouldn't even have kept us up with inflation. In 2023 24 inflation would have been $390, $44 uh in this last year. Basically represents between a 1 to 3% increase in our base revenue limits. Average base wages for the state of Wisconsin in 2023 went up 8%. Average base wages in Wisconsin went up 4.12%. I'll remind you that the board uh went higher than that to try to keep up with our neighboring districts with our salary. I think we went a grand total of 6% in 2024 25. So, we're already $3,380 behind students and we're

112now even farther behind inflation wise and that graph will keep coming and I'm sure that they'll put out another one. Probably the best way to explain it is the state says the bucket gets to be this full. In 2024 25 our bucket got to be roughly 16.7 million. I did not give you accurate numbers on my on my little picture here. Next year it gets to go up only about $100,000. But the big switch is on the bottom. The local taxes used to be 7.8 million. The state aid used to be roughly 8.8. And like we said, those two kind of flip-flopped. And that's because our property values are going up and our number of students are going down. [Music] So we are projecting as of yesterday that our uh mill rate will be 8.15.

113So that's per,000 or an increase of 38 cents per $1,000 of um home value. Again, we don't work on appraised full home value. Um, I'll let Cara talk about that a little bit more. That's one of the confusing things, too, is your tax bill won't look exactly like this because we have to go with actualized value. Um, and the city and the townships go with their appraisal value. Um, so we'll have somebody here to explain that at the on the 24th and we'll go into that a little bit more depth, but basically we're looking at a 38 38 cent per $100,000. So if you own a $200,000 house, it's $76. $300,000 house, $114. $400,000 house 152. $500,000 house, you're looking at increasing your school taxes by about $190. And again, that's across the entire school

114district. It's going to vary depending upon the township and the city you live in. Um, and Cara's gonna talk about that in a little bit. You ready? >> Yep. [Music] Um, do you have you have the link? There you go. So um this is this is part of uh the publication that we send into the newspaper and so the initial calculations when producing the budget is that um we're importing all the numbers into the system and and then we take it into the bar forecast model. This is still a rough draft, right? This is not a finalized budget, but this is as we know right now and numbers that have been calculated into the system. So, right here you'll see the um three-year comparison and proposed fiscal year 2526. Um so, as far as um

115what I really want to focus on here, I guess, is the total school levy at the bottom. So, you have the audited column is the first one. So, that was your 2324 and that was your tax levy. Um and that has been audited. So, yes, that was a true number. Um the unodudited bucket next column over was 11488711 and that was that is actual um the audit has been um I I believe the auditors are sending in their certification to DPI this week. Um so I had finalized information from them today and it looks like everything is all clear to go up to DPI. So I would say that is an actual number right certified by the auditors at this point. Um what is proposed for um 2526 now is the 12 million um 531682

116um that is based on um your debt services both of those debt services um your community service fund and then also the general fund what what the taxation number needs to be passed on due to the reduction basically in what the funding is coming from the eight. So, we're looking at taxing for about $8.5 million just to run the school district. The $3.4 million has been voted on by different ref for the different referendums for the high school. And then the uh 2022 uh referendum. Um and then the 225 is what runs the community, all the PCR activities. >> Can I ask a quick question on this? >> Sure. Just to clarify. So, between 20 24 and 25 and 2526 it's about $1.1 million difference rough give or take right >> Mhm. And that's primarily

117because the state funding dropped about 900 plus thousand, right? Is that is that where the >> that's where that's where the between actually it should be a little higher. It should be about 1.3. But we're able to to do some funers didn't go up that much. This is just the state aid dropped. So this we have to levy this much more to the local taxpayer. I think that's really important to make sure we're we're clear on. >> That's exactly correct. Nine. If we go back a little bit and I can give you the exact number >> this and they're going to say well you're spending one point why are you spending so much more money >> well it's it's because of the state funding >> they cut our state $964,000 and that's the vast majority

118of it the rest is that 325 increase and that was again decided by the Republican controlled legislature and signed by the Democratic government. So, uh, whatever side of the aisle you on, there's, you know, things to say, but again, a lot of these this funds, these funds are being pushed to the local level. Um, and they don't even keep us up with inflation. >> And the the major flip here in funding is the again property values here in Pierce County right next to Minnesota. We've seen an increase in our property values and that's that's shifted us now. >> Yeah, we we are we became technically last year Prescott was tertiarily aided negatively tertiarily aided about.1%. And this next year it's projected to jump to over 6%. So as the property values go up and the

119number of students go down the state aid that's the direct effect on the state aid minus 5.9%. >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> So again the mill rate is estimated at 8.5 for this coming year. >> Um on the other side of this state a drop. Oh, technically does that that shows up does that show up as a school levy credit on the I mean I don't want to get into the details of this. I'm just trying to figure out like does that do we get does the state drop their their portion of the school taxes and it shows up? Maybe you don't know that car. I don't want to put you on the spot. I'm just I'm thinking about here. >> I if you're going where I think you're going. No, it it shouldn't affect

120your state level taxes. >> Okay. >> So, it only is going to change your local taxes. >> All right. So, um, probably the best thing to that would lower the levy on something like this would be to increase the general aid by however they want to do it, either increasing state taxes or releasing some of the $5 billion they have in surplus. Those would be the two ways they could legally do it. Um, again, the DPI requires the districts to use actualized property value and the city, Mike, Matt, speak up if I'm wrong, but they use assessed property values. Um, we're we're not going to try to explain this to you. Um, we're going to reach out to the city and see if they want to have somebody here on the 24th, but each property

121value and township will be different. These are our current best estimates. The city doesn't even Right, Mr. Wolf, you guys don't have your finalized numbers yet, do you? So, those come those do not come out until October. Um, but our estimates show that the town of Clifton went up 2.9%. The town of Diamond Bluff went up 12.4%. The town of Oak Grove went up 9.1%. Trimble went down 1.7% and the city of Prescott went down half a percent. For us, that all gets averaged out to be one one number. um is where is when we get the 8.5 for the mill rate, which is about a $4.97% increase in the mill rate. Um our grand total of $ 1.5 billion of property in the school district. Questions on that? What factors are left to finalize

122numbers? There's enrollment, which you kind of project. Is there what is there other ones yet? Well, then these property values aren't haven't been assigned. Yeah, those get those get assigned in October. Um those are the two big numbers. This is the Baron model. Um the district-like 90 90% of the districts in the state of Wisconsin and um if you there's giant sports places named Bear because they do their job very well. Um but 90% of the school districts use the BARD model. It's it's fairly accurate. It's not going to move. it shouldn't move by giant amounts. Um, but the other thing that impacts this is not us, it's every other state or every other district in the state. So, if Milwaukee has not yet submitted their budget or their numbers, that will have a dramatic

123impact on this. If Washington Island that has 12 students hasn't impacted their have hasn't sent their numbers in yet, it won't have any effect. Frankly, Prescott's numbers wouldn't move this much, but some of the giant school districts, the Madison's, the Milwaukees, the Renes, the Kenoshas, the Appletons, they don't have they haven't submitted all their final numbers yet, and that can change this somewhat from here to there. So, those are kind of the three big factors, but it's a fairly solid estimate. But if it comes back at $812 or $8.19, that's, you know, within where we're looking at. [Music] So, back to the the levy for PSD. Here's the breakdown of that. So, the 12 of the 12 million 531682 that's estimated um based on numbers we don't know at this point. Um the operation fund

124we're estimating to be 8.490 million. Um property tax chargebacks unknown. Um non-referendum debt fund 38. Uh that dollar amount this year, that's an actual that's $390,125. Um referendum debt service fund 39 that's 3.426,553. And who community service funds again we're leaving that at $225,000. That was 2 years ago was $200,000. And looking at um their expenditures and revenues from this past year, looks like 225,000 that was raised to last year was a good number for this year as well. Hopefully. Basically, that community service fund of 225 covers the two employees who run all those programs. The cost of the programs are for the most part uh covered by the fees that the participants uh pay. >> And again, that's just a diagram showing all of those numbers going into the total tax levy for the

125year 2526 that's projected. So on September 24th at 6 PM um we'll have our annual meeting. Um and basically the agenda is um we give reports um we'll have an educational report uh from uh I assume Mr. Cosmoski but we haven't talked about it yet. Um we'll talk about um some of our test results and then we'll look at our facilities and do a little bit of a referendum update. Basically a briefer version of what you got tonight and then Cara and I will pres present our best numbers um as of probably September 23rd. Uh the first resolution is the adapt adoption of the tax levy. The second resolution is the salary of the board members um reimbursement of board members expenses and then set the annual meeting date for uh the following year. Um

126typically we set that kind of as a floating date. Um but we give you enough notice. So that would be on the 24th and we'd love to see as many members of the public as possible because any taxpaying member in the school district can vote. Okay. Anybody have any final thoughts here before we move on? >> All right. Thanks, John. Thanks, Carol. >> Nice explanation. >> Yes. Well done. We'll move on to item G, exploration of potential building consolidation. >> All right. I'm going to start out by saying three times in a row, we are not necessarily closing a building. We're not necessarily closing a building. We're not necessarily closing a building. However, we talked about, we just got done talking about our declining enrollment numbers. Um, we would not be good stewards of the

127taxpayers's money if we did not take a look at seeing if there is uh some type of consolidation that would make sense for the district, most importantly for the students and staff. Um, but also somewhat financially. Um, so I am planning on spending the next uh September and October getting uh input from the principles, from the building leaders, uh from the directors, uh including our food service, our direct our building and grounds department and all the other departments. Um start looking into potential savings of closing a building. Um Mr. Dr. Hoya just spent some time looking showing you a chart of all the possible uh updates to roofs and boilers and stuff like that. So that's a factor. Um you know would we replace a boiler on a building we may not have in 5

128years. Um then consult with the board at the October meeting about options for public input. Uh come with some plans uh to present to the board and the community. get feedback from stakeholders, whether that's through community workshops, surveys to staff, parents in the community. Uh keep working on those costsaving studies, and then uh start looking at what would the remodeling and moving costs be because if we're going to save a million dollars by closing a building, and we're going to have to spend $2 million, $3 million. I think those numbers are frankly are just off top of my head. I just want to point out that if it's going to cost us a lot more to move than we're going to save, then we're not going to do it. Um, and we also need to

129take a look at our student population trends. Um, frankly, uh, the preliminary data I've done does not looks it looks like we're going to level out in a few years, but it does not look like it's going to go up unless there is an increase in housing in the school district. Um, and then some of the things to think about, first and foremost, what's the impact on teaching and learning? Just being able to physically put kids in a building isn't enough reason to move them. We got to make sure they have good solid teaching spaces and learning spaces. Um the impact on the other buildings that may absorb the grades. Do we have the classroom space, the gym space, the cafeteria space? We haven't even thought about if we do close a building, but if

130we would decide to close a building, what would we do with it? Would we sell it? Would we use the for district and office and rental space? Would we mothball it? Would we partially mothball it? One of the big things that I hear um in my first two months here in the district is gym space is important. Gym space is important. Comes right after are you closing a building? Um with a lot of conversations I have with everybody whether it's at the kitchen table this morning or uh just running into people in different businesses. Um but again, what are our savings and operating expenses? What's our flexibility if our enrollment does increase? We don't want to shrink so much that if our enrollment jumps back up, we would have to all of a sudden in

1315 years, 10 years come to the district or this taxpayers and say, "Oops, we need that building back." Um, and staff staff savings study. I want to point out that if we move grade levels, we will probably not cut any academic staff. Um, but currently we are paying a cleaning service to come into one of our buildings at night at quite an expensive uh paycheck every year. And we wouldn't have to do that if we had one less building cuz we could just reassign our custodial staff. Um, and then last but not least, what type, if any, of outside consultants do we bring in and how do we get them involved in it? Any comments from the board here? Tanya, do you want to you want any any comments or questions? >> Sure. Um, you

132know, I I don't have questions. I think that this is something that um we've been publicly saying we need to have a conversation about. We know and we've gone through workshops. We've talked about at almost every board meeting for I don't know a year. Um but with that last referendum, that's only going to get us so far because um teachers and staff keep getting raises, things keep costing more and that that money is going to run out and if I am remembering that's just in about threeish years. So we know that we need to do something um ahead of that to kind of um change that line. This is one option of something that we want to explore. It's we don't know that if this is the thing that we would decide to do, but

133we want to make sure that we're exploring all of our different options and being good stewards of of of the dollars and the taxpayer dollars in the district. So, um I really appreciate seeing this timeline cuz I it's we've been talking and it's kind of uh putting things into reality. kids giving us sometimes to check and balance and and kind of make sure that we're on track cuz I mean anybody that works in a school or lives in a community that's close to school, it's a big deal. It's a big deal for families. It's a big deal for kids. And so this is um something that we have to start talking about and and putting out in the community and getting those feelers for. So thank you. No questions though, >> Pat. No, similarly, I

134I really appreciate the timeline. I think most of the bullet points on here, things we've talked about in recent board meetings. I think we're thinking about all the right stuff. So, this is a great uh a great starting point. Um yeah, good. >> Um just we need to kind of then consider all of this and sooner than later do as we've talked about before the master plan. Um so you know this is one little snapshot but there is a much larger picture that we I think need to kind of not necessarily wrap into this but kind of have an overview and and include that in some of this process as what it would look like in the future. And I guess you kind of did say that, Jim. What would happen if we, you know,

135did increase students. We don't want to hamstring ourselves. So that's where I think we kind of look a little more future forward for some of these things instead of just, yep, we'll do this and be done. So that's my only addition to this is >> kind of to add in the 10 year down the road. What What do we look like here at Fresca? I think you've all said it, but um Wisconsin needs to do more and they're not. And our kids deserve more and our teachers deserve more and they've been asked to do a lot with a little and they're continuing that that trend. And so in order to give them as much as we can um and respect our taxpayers, we need to look at every aspect. And so this is unfortunate but

136it's something that again we've talked about for many many months. Um the plan looks good to talk about it and to retal about it and to talk about um and to bring all the stakeholders in. Um but it's something that has to be done. So yeah. >> Yeah. I'll just I'll just add on. So, as I do a little recap from last year when when we were going through the process for handing out increases because we're trying to be fiscally responsible with the referendum dollars and uh live up to our commitment of of increasing salaries and all that stuff. This was a part of that conversation was how are we going to sustain that? And the the elephant in the room is we got four buildings and do we need four buildings for for kids?

137So, this this conversation's been going on for well over a year now. We always had it in the plan to kind of start talking about it this year. So Jim's doing a good job kind of laying it out for us and being transparent with everybody. This is kind of what the timeline looks like. We're going to we're going to have to have some discussions on what to do. um you know whether whether whether or not we stick with it. But I you know we we talked about using that that fourth building possibly on as a as maybe we move the district office and that would be an easy easy shift and then move kids into the we we'd be able to support kids into three buildings. Now that was conversations that we had as a

138board last school year. Now, we kind of get into the into the details of that and see just how much can we save by doing that. What what what kind of cost savings we're talking because that's really what it's all about is we got to we're trying to we're trying to save some some expenses so we can continue to sustain the programming the and in this in the the academic uh uh excellence that we do have. So, here we are and I'm glad I'm glad you brought it up tonight, Jim. It's it's being transparent and and here we go. Right. So, >> um I just wanted to add one thing and this is just something that we've done historically here and so it's something to consider. I don't know if it would work into something

139that um is something you'd be interested in or if it works within a time frame, but we uh had some success I think with our facilities um advisory committee and we kind of put a to a a committee together that included some community members, some staff members, some board members, and just really um helped um advise us as a board from a different perspective and they were privy to a lot of this information. We had an agency help guide those conversations. So, it's just something that I don't know if it would would play in here, but that community feedback is is it's a way to gather it and has worked for us in the past. >> That's uh that's that's a great idea. Um I mean, we definitely want to make sure that whether it's

140through a workshop or an advisory committee or surveys or just open meetings, we get as much information as we can. But yeah, um I don't know. Hopefully Courtney has that information somewhere or I can reach out to Dr. Spakuza and maybe get the past information. >> Yeah, just feedback. Is it something worthwhile here or not? Yeah, >> Adam and Vicki were our two board reps. >> Yeah, we can help with that. >> Yeah. >> I appreciate that. >> All right. >> Anything else board on that? >> Nope. We are not closing a building. >> All right, we'll move on. Pat, that is the end of information discussion. So, we are on item B, recognition of visitors. Same rules as applied as the beginning of the meeting. Anybody at the at this time care to be

141recognized? [Music] >> Yeah. coming up and same same thing just state your name and >> look at how well you can see the board all of a sudden the screen >> thing but I rice again also I know that they have a lot of problem with buckthornne down there they've had a lot of cleanup >> do I have to get permission get that it's I've gotten rid of all this all of it on my property I used to be able to stand up in my window when there was snow I could see the deer all the way down walking everywhere through there. Years ago between I and McDonald's, we probably had 50 deer in the backyard cuz it was unlimited baiting. We just threw it out. You had to throw it out or there was

142piles of hair down there for them fighting over it. >> Mhm. >> But I was just wondering, do I is there any way getting permission for me to be able to take it off of the city? As long as I I know what Buckthornne is, >> I got to wear a long sleeve shirt and hat or >> Mhm. >> Yeah. to get permission to be able to just take that out too. I mean, is there any need to talk to or >> is it the school district property or the city property? >> It's it's your property right below we've already talked about, but it's just it's solid in there. You can't >> direct. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I mean, >> I don't want to do anything, you know, and get in trouble or, you know,

143>> Yeah. >> I definitely >> I mean, a herd of goats, I hear. No. Anyways, we we can't really answer that here, but I think you and Jim could probably >> Yeah. >> And I also want to make sure that I'm doing it the right way cuz I've heard of different ways of doing it, but they might not appreciate the chemicals that have been used. I know some people cut it off, they take a little round, they put a cut swab and put it on top, it sucks it and kills the roots and everything is what it does. When you cut it off cuz it's trying to draw that in is what it does, you know, which is probably pretty safe, but at the same time, maybe you wouldn't want that on the on your

144property. So >> all right, >> thank you. >> Yep. >> Talk to that trail. >> Anybody else? >> We will move on. >> The board will consider a motion to convene into close session under exemptions 1985 1C for evaluation of some employees, several employees here. That's it. So, we will consider a motion and then we'll roll call for that motion. I move to go into close session at 8 p.m. in room A17 at Prescott High School. I'll second. >> All right. A motion and a second. Alen, >> hi. >> Vicky, >> hi. Hi. >> Had I and I as well. We will go into close session at 8 p.m. roughly. >> Thanks everyone. Uh maybe just for the record, we're going to come out of close session and then take a motion out of close

145session at during the meeting. It'll be in room 1817. No action will be taken, I don't believe. Right, Jim? No, >> no action will be taken. Thank you.